Posted by Mikey

It is 12:43 on Tuesday, November 30th. I have been short one kidney for a whole day now. Things are going as perfectly as could be expected. Amy and I are both peeing. I have been up walking for two laps around the nurse's station, as well as getting up to pee twice. The only really bad part was when they tried to get me up last night and I ended up dry heaving. Dry heaving with muscles that have been recently sewn together is not something I would recommend to anyone. I suspect I scared the girl next door (she was there having a benign tumor removed from her jawline) when I cried, "Oh, God!" each time I heaved. It hurt so much that I didn't even care. I just wanted to cry. I felt much better during the night - there were moments when I actually contemplated calling the nurse in to have me go for a walk - but I just dozed on and off instead. This morning, they removed the catheter (not nearly as painful as I feared) and disconnected me from the IV fluids. Now, I am already up to a regular diet, having proven that my bowels are working by producing a long fart. Yay, me! Unfortunately, I am not particularly hungry. The pain in my stomach is bearable, but tends to overwhelm everything else. Except for the pain in my shoulder from the inflato-gas. That is overwhelming in and of itself. Mostly because it doesn't respond to pain meds. Ah, well. It will go away soon, they tell me.

Update by Mikey after this was written: she woke up later very much hungry, and her grilled cheese sandwich vanished. Then she took a walk around the ward, then later another walk down the hall, into a wheelchair, then up to visit Amy's room. She's doing perfectly, with the only problem being the inflato-gas pains. We will be leaving tomorrow after I have another wonderful night on a recliner. At least the nurses will be poking in on us a lot less often during the night this time. Which probably just means my back will have time to settle into a spine-shattering position before I can wake up and shift. But on the plus side, I have all my kidneys and the closest thing to a gaping hole in my gut is my bellybutton.